World briefs

CHINA A 51-year-old Chinese bank employee in the country’s northeast fatally wounded two bank officials yesterday with a shotgun in a rare shooting incident, local media reported. Local newspapers from the Liaoning province said the man, upset over a monetary dispute with his employer, opened fire on the president, the union chairman and two other colleagues in the lobby of a local branch of People’s Bank of China.

INDIA marks the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal gas leak tragedy with protests demanding harsher punishments for those responsible and more compensation for the victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster. More on p12

JAPAN A Japanese space explorer is launched on a six-year roundtrip journey to blow a crater in a remote asteroid and collect samples from inside in hopes of gathering clues to the origin of earth. The explorer is expected to reach the asteroid in 2018 and spend about 18 months studying it before returning in 2020.

AUSTRALIA’s government is taking steps to curb Australian travelers’ soaring expectations of what help they can get from their embassies, such as a loan to pay a prostitute in Thailand or assistance to evict a polecat from above a ceiling in the United States. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop yesterday announced new measures to underscore consular services as a last resort and to promote “a stronger culture of self-reliance and personal responsibility in the traveling public.”

QATAR  An American couple cleared of charges in their adopted daughter’s death have passed through passport control and are set to leave Qatar. Matthew and Grace Huang’s departure yesterday closed a nearly two-year saga that climaxed in a court ruling absolving them of any wrongdoing in the death of their 8-year-old daughter Gloria.

GERMANY Thousands of mourners are expected at the funeral of a young woman who died after reportedly defending two teenage girls from male harassment. Tugce Albayrak had been in a coma since mid-November following an altercation at a restaurant in Offenbach near Frankfurt. She died Friday, her 23rd birthday, after her family gave doctors permission to switch off her life support.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES An American schoolteacher was stabbed to death in a public restroom at a mall by a suspect wearing the traditional black robe, full-face veil and gloves commonly worn by local women throughout the Arab Gulf region, local police said Tuesday.

IRAQ An Iraqi official denied yesterday that a woman detained in Lebanon is a wife of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group, adding that she is the sister of a terror suspect being held in Iraq. The statement by Iraq’s Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maan Ibrahim adds to the confusion surrounding the identity of the woman and child who were detained about 10 days ago in northern Lebanon travelling with a fake ID.

USA Police are investigating Michael Brown’s stepfather for angry comments on the streets of Ferguson after a grand jury decided not to indict the police officer who fatally shot his unarmed stepson, a spokesman said Tuesday. Officials are looking into Louis Head’s comments as part of a broader investigation into the arson, vandalism and looting that followed the Nov. 24 grand jury announcement.

SOMALIA A suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a U.N. convoy near Mogadishu’s airport yesterday, killing three people, Somali police said. No U.N. staff were killed or injured but the attack damaged two U.N. vehicles traveling in a four-vehicle convoy, said U.N. spokesman Aleem Siddique.